Perhaps accordingly the owners of the play
altered, or hired a dramatist to alter, the arrangement at this point,
and this was unwittingly done in such a way as to produce the
contradictions we are engaged on. There is nothing intrinsically
unlikely in this idea; and certainly, I think, the amount of such
corruption of Shakespeare's texts by the players is usually rather
underrated than otherwise. But I cannot say I see any signs of foreign
alteration in the text, though it is somewhat odd that Roderigo, who
makes no complaint on the day of the arrival in Cyprus when he is being
persuaded to draw Cassio into a quarrel that night, should, directly
after the quarrel (II. iii. 370), complain that he is making no advance
in his pursuit of Desdemona, and should speak as though he had been in
Cyprus long enough to have spent nearly all the money he brought from
Venice.
Or, possibly, Shakespeare's original plan was to allow some time to
elapse after the arrival at Cyprus, but when he reached the point he
found it troublesome to indicate this lapse in an interesting way, and
convenient to produce Cassio's fall by means of the rejoicings on the
night of the arrival, and then almost necessary to let the request for
intercession, and the temptation, follow on the next day.
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